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Class Forums - Summer 2007

PHIL 100 - Introduction to Philosophy (Online)

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Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 12:31:59 PM

This thread is for questions about the class and about the class material. Ask lots of questions. But it helps if you have tried to first figure out the answer for yourself. If it is a question about the material, be specific. Explain what in the reading you do not understand. If the answer is "everything," try a secondary source online that summarizes the material. but don't avoid asking questions until you are lost in the material.

Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - May 21 2007 : 08:40:46 AM

The extra credit for me is worth 1 point for a 200-word analysis of the material you are reading, supplemented with online material. For example, look at the questions in Assignments and Course Materials and then write up a response with reasons for the claims you make and clarify all key philosophical terms. Try one. I will give credit for trying and will give feedback for future work. I don't have specific due dates. Start as early as possible for more feedback. I can't accept any work past the 6th week.

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Jessica Yost
Apprentice

48 Posts

Posted - May 21 2007 : 9:53:30 PM

I bought Plato, The Republic. Is that what I need to be reading? Then what do I need to do? I don't see where I am supposed to respond about the book.

Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin

1368 Posts

Posted - May 21 2007 : 10:21:16 PM

Jessica,

Yup. the Republic is what you need to be reading. Is what you bought the Great Dialogues of Plato? If so, the Republic starts on p. 125, and what Paul wants you to concentrate on this week is just the beginning of Book 1 -- up to the end of Socrates' conversation with Cephalus at about the middle of p. 129. If you've got a different edition of the Republic, then the part that corresponds to pp. 125-129 in Great Dialogues of Plato is the part that runs from 327a to 331d in the traditional Stephanus numbering (usually available in the margins of English translations of Plato; these numbers are located rather less usefully in parentheses at the top of the right-hand pages in Great Dialogues of Plato).

What I'd recommend myself is that you start by doing a quick read-through of all of Book 1, just to get your bearings with respect to what's going on in the text. That'll take you up to p. 154. Then you can go to the Course Materials folder and look in the Unit 1 folder there if you haven't already done so. There's a link there to an online commentary on the Republic that you might find useful (it's pretty good), and that's also where Paul has formulated the questions he wants you to be thinking about this week. Once you've looked at the Guide to Book I in that online commentary and have looked over Paul's questions, go back and reread pp. 125-129 a second time to begin to really soak up what's going on in the opening part of the dialogue. Then you can start answering the questions Paul has posed. Once you've begun drafting those answers, you might want to go back and give pp. 125-129 a third read. I find three times through material like this is just about the minimum I need to really begin to see what's there.

Next, you can look at the extra credit questions Paul has formulated for Book 1 in the Assignments folder, and if you feel like posting analyses of the kind they call for, you can post those in the Analysis thread on the class Forum. And of course at any time, you should feel free to post questions like this one and questions about the text in the Questions thread on the class Forum.

As I understand it, Paul will be accepting responses to the questions he poses in the Course Materials folder and the Assignments folder at any time till the end of the sixth week. Of course, the sooner you post your responses in the Analysis thread, the sooner he can give you feedback.

Tom

Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin

1368 Posts

Posted - May 22 2007 : 10:51:15 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Caitlin Brateng in a separate thread (now deleted)

Hi,

I seem rather confused as well. I understand what you're saying about the questions and your suggestions on understanding the readings. I guess my confusion comes from the fact that there is no clearly laid-out timeline on what needs to be turned in when and where. Do the questions in the Course Materials folder that you mentioned need to be turned in for a grade, and if so where? I think that an outline of the course and assignments would be extremely helpful to us students if possible. If there is already one and I just haven't discovered it yet, where is it?

Thanks so much,
Caitlin

Caitlin,

The timeline to rely on is the one contained in the course outline in the syllabus (now also more conveniently located in the Assignments folder). For the first half of the course, it goes like this:

Here's a breakdown, week by week, of what we'll be working on in the first half of the course.

Week 1: Unit 1: Cephalus -- (Republic, Book 1, 327a-331d (pp. 125-129 in Great Dialogues of Plato)
Week 2: Units 2-3: Polemarchus and Thrasymachus -- (Republic, Book 1, 331d-354b (pp. 129-154 in Great Dialogues of Plato)
Week 3: Units 4-5: Glaucon; the Beginning of Plato's Argument
Week 4: Units 6-7: Social Contract Doctrine and Applied Ethics (Unit 10: possible extra credit)
Week 5: Unit 8: Philosophical Psychology (Exam 1)
Week 6: Unit 9: Miscellaneous Discussions in Books 5-9 (Exam 2)

You should have the indicated readings done in each by the beginning of the week (in Week 1, just as soon as possible) so that you can spend the week discussing the material online and working on your analyses of the material.

So what you should be working on this week is Unit 1 in the Course Materials folder. What you have to do at a minimum is some reading and some thinking. Read Book 1 of the Republic at least up to the end of Socrates' conversation with Cephalus (pp. 125-129 in Great Dialogues of Plato), and think about the questions Paul poses about this in Unit 1. Nothing needs to be turned in for credit this week at all.

That's not to say that you shouldn't be posting actively in the Forum. You should. You can post questions about the readings here in the Questions thread, and you can post your responses to Paul's extra credit questions in the Analysis thread. Things posted there (in the Analysis thread) will count for extra credit. See the description of how that works in Paul's second post in this thread and in the Analysis thread itself.

So to summarize: your grade for the first half of the course will depend entirely on how you do on the two tests scheduled for Weeks 5 and 6 and on whatever you've submitted (in the Analysis thread) for extra credit by the end of Week 6 -- June 29, Apart from that, what you should be doing is getting involved in the philosophical discussions we'll be having in the "Discussions" thread right here in the Forum. If all goes well, that's where the real life of the course is going to be found!

That's all there is to it.

Sarah Schwolert
Apprentice

32 Posts

Posted - May 24 2007 : 12:41:56 PM

As I understand it, exams are the only way we earn points during this first part of the class. Any analytical writing we do in the discussion board is for extra credit and is not required.

Are there any required discussion board posts?

Sorry if this question is repetitive, I just want to make sure I am not missing anything.

Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - May 24 2007 : 1:39:32 PM

Nothing required for grades beyond the exams. But discussion board participation will certainly be persuasive if you wish to argue for a better grade when your numerical score is close to the edge. Why do we do this? In part because self-motivation is important for doing philosophy, as you will see in Plato's psychology in Book IV. If you want to learn how to do philosophy, find a topic that interests you and write it up, and start to receive feedback from all of us.

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Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - May 25 2007 : 11:07:08 AM

Tom and I have questions about whether I should post pages for the reading in the Rouse translation of the Republic. I used the Stephanus pages in course materials because I wanted you to have a common method of referring to the Republic if you were using a different translation than Rouse. (I encourage you to do so, because then we can discuss the quality of the different translations, and because some may be clearer to you. For example, I generally use the Cornford translation and some students like the Bloom translation. Different translations are available on line and at your local library. So why did we choose the rouse translation?) Also I thought if I posted specific pages from Rouse you would think only those pages were required. That would be incorrect. You must read the entire Republic to gather the sense of his entire argument (one reason for not using a standard text that only gives you pieces of arguments). I emphasize some Platonic arguments because they are especially important to my interpretation of the Republic and I want you to spend extra time with those passages, which will help you develop the skills of finding and evaluating arguments. but in reading the entire text you will find material that is interesting to you and you can help all of us take the class in new and interesting directions.

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Thomas Jensen
Newcomer

4 Posts

Posted - May 30 2007 : 2:24:25 PM

After seeing Sarah's post and Paul's reply I understand that self-motivation is a great base for you class.... I was just wondering if there was a time limit. It seems that I only have time to post near the end of the week and on the weekend, so if there is a time when we "should" be posting, I would like to know so that I can schedule that time in.

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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin

1368 Posts

Posted - May 30 2007 : 2:51:23 PM

Thomas,

As Paul made clear in his second post above, he won't be accepting any work for extra credit in the Analysis thread past the end of the sixth week. Otherwise, you can post things in the Forum whenever you'd like.

The general advice I'd give is to drop by the Forum to see what's going on as often as is convenient and to post as frequently as is convenient. It's going to be difficult for you to get much out of the course that you couldn't get out of it by reading this stuff on your own unless you do.

Since this is an online course, this Forum replaces the classroom. This is where all the action is going to be.

Tom

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Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - Jun 01 2007 : 10:41:44 AM

I have been asked about the weekly requirements for the course. I do not think of the course that way. You set weekly requirements for yourself. I suggest that you read the text and the course materials and assignments on Blackboard, and additional material on the links Tom provided and on Google. You can earn extra credit with analyses on the forum and subjective extra credit for participating on the discussion forum.

Again, philosophy is a skill the mastery of which you should individualize. At this point you should be trying the Socratic techniques of Book 1 on your ideas of justice, playing both yourself and Socrates. Cameron and others in the discussion forum have set good models for philosophical discussion.

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Emily Holland
Apprentice

26 Posts

Posted - Jun 01 2007 : 12:48:01 PM

So I am confused about the questions under the units. Are we supposed to answer these questions somewhere, or are they kind of like guide lines to what we should understand in the readings?

Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin

1368 Posts

Posted - Jun 01 2007 : 2:26:16 PM

Emily,

I'd take those questions both as indicators as to what you need to understand and as questions you should try your hand at answering, and the place to do that is in the Discussion Forum.

Hope to see you there!

Tom

Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - Jun 04 2007 : 1:53:46 PM

The questions in Assignments and Course Materials for the first part of the course are guides to help with your reading and prepare for the exams and participate in the discussions. You may also use them to write 200 words in the Analysis forum for extra credit. The discussions are subjective extra credit that can help with the final grade.

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Peter Rockvam
Fledgling

9 Posts

Posted - Jun 22 2007 : 1:31:26 PM

I have been looking over the course materials and trying to study up for the test, and I am a little confused. When I went to the Book Stop, I bought the book The Republic of Plato translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford and figured this to be the book we are reading because it said PHIL 100, and I have found that the general idea seems the same as what I am reading (I think), but I was wondering whether I bought and have been reading the wrong book?

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Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - Jun 22 2007 : 3:35:42 PM

I use the Cornford translation of the Republic when I teach on campus. So you have the right book. Take advantage of Cornford's section summaries. But you will have to buy a translation of another Platonic dialogue -- the Symposium -- for the second half of the course. Also read everything posted for the class on Blackboard and in the Discussion Forum.

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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin

1368 Posts

Posted - Jun 22 2007 : 4:15:18 PM

Bibliographical information on the book we recommended for the course -- Great Dialogues of Plato, translated by W.H.D. Rouse -- is in the syllabus, which you can download from Blackboard. It contains a translation of the Symposium, and that's the one I'll be using (quoting from, referring to) during the second half of the course.

Caitlin Brateng
Fledgling

14 Posts

Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 3:43:50 PM

Hi,
I noticed in the grade book on Blackboard it says that our grades are:
Test 1 25 points
Test 2 25 points
Analyses 50 points...
so on and so forth.

My question is, what is the analysis? Are these participation points for Forum questions? 50 points is two tests! I assume that it cannot be the extra credit since extra credit is, well, extra -- so it should not be worth anything. If you could get back to me as soon as possible that'd be great.

Thanks
Caitlin Brateng

Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 4:21:28 PM

The 50 points extra credit line in blackboard relects work done in the Analysis section of the forums -- 1 point for each 200 words of well-reasoned, well-written philosophical analysis of the sort you will be doing on the exam due July 2. I consider this analysis section a practice for students in writing philosophy and for this second exam. The 50 points is there because in theory someone might write 50 points of extra credit.

There is subjective extra credit that I will add to the final grade for the first part of the course. I call this subjective because I don't have a mathematical formula for calculating how much credit for how much work.

Hope this helps. Ask follow-up questions.

Paul Hodapp
Moderator

86 Posts

Posted - Jun 27 2007 : 10:29:28 AM

About the second exam...

1. 200 words is just a suggestion as to how long each of your answers should be.

2. I wonder what to do about the test and a quiz due during the same time period. This point escaped me during my first read-through. I am not certain I would do that in a regular class. Is it fair à la Plato? One suggestion is to allow students who are not good at multitasking, and thus do not do well on my test, to retake my test with a penalty for the second chance to do well.

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Sarah Schwolert
Apprentice

32 Posts

Posted - Jun 27 2007 : 3:32:05 PM

I am feeling suddenly overwhelmed with the Part 2 assignments. I would just like some clarification about the new online quizzes. I understand what they are covering, but how many questions should we expect and what percentage of our grade will they count for? I think it would help if you could explain how the grades will be structured with these changes. Thanks!

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